Don Garber: “The games are hard to find. I’m telling you as an actual viewer, the reaction from our ownership, from our team presidents and even our fans in terms of being able to find the games.” (USA TODAY Sports)
By Michael Lewis
FrontRowSoccer.com Editor
MLS commissioner Don Garber is not happy about the way the 2023 edition of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup has been presented.
In a rare bit of criticism at an open U.S. Soccer board of directors meeting on Friday morning, he leveled a harsh assessment at some of the tournament’s streaming presentations and field conditions.
“Let me give you a shout-out to the group to doing as best you can with this tournament,” Garber began, before he offered his critique.
“But I’ve got to tell you from our perspective, it is a very poor reflection on what it is that we’re trying to do with soccer at the highest level. The games are hard to find. I’m telling you as an actual viewer, the reaction from our ownership, from our team presidents and even our fans in terms of being able to find the games.
“The quality of the games, some of the games that that we’ve been playing in are on sub-par fields. I would say that they’re not games that we would want our product to be shown to a large audience. So frankly, I’m not all that disappointed that the audience is small.”
“So I appreciate the enthusiasm about it but we need to get better with the U.S. Open Cup. It’s just not the proper reflection of what soccer in America at the professional level needs to be.”
Last year Open Cup matches were streamed on ESPN+. This year’s games have been on the Bleacher Report App, B/R Football YouTube, Teamcast, and CBS Sports Golazo, which was added in the last round.
Several minutes earlier, U.S. Soccer chief commercial officer David Wright had announced there would be a summer summit of soccer executives and fans about the Open Cup.
“I’m encouraged about the summit,” Garber said. “I hope you’ve invited a group of people from the league whether it’s our teams or chief soccer officers, obviously people from the league office. But so far, our experience as participating teams has not been positive. I just want I want you to be aware of that.”
